Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1887-11-09
GUNNING G.; r. r BEAR.
"A Hunters Marrow Escape from q
Huge Cinnamon. 81

A Hunters Marrow Escape from q
Huge Cinnamon.
The Pluck Of : Wounded Griz1ly--vari-
,55 cites Of Bears IN tho Foclky Mount
aims How . Poor Fellow
Was Killed by Bruin.
The largest bear any Of US ever saw,
writes MI. w. s.. Rainstord in Scribners'
Magazine, was cinnamon that came within
an inch Of killing one OF my men, good
hunter and first class guide Charles HUFF.
Il may refer to the big cinnamon, too, as an
instance Of the danger that sometimes at
tends trapping the bear.) He had set his
traps near Sunlight, in the spring, and was
unable to visit then for q week. When he
got to the bait trap and log were gone
After taking up the trail he soon found tho
remnants of his log chewed to match-wood.
The bear, evidently q large one, had gone OF
with the trap. He followed his trail as long
as he had light, but found nothing, and had
to return to camp. Next day, very foolishly,
he took the trail again alone, beginning
where he had left of. After long march
he came to the steep side Of a,hill The bear
had evidently gone up there. On the soft,
snow-sodden ground the trail was plain.
just as he was beginning to ascend,
there was q rush and a roar, and the
bear was on him. He had no time to
put his repeater to his shoulder, but letting
it fall between his hands, pulled the trigger.
The bear was within a few feet of him and
by great chance the unnamed bullet took
him between the eyes. He had evidently
tried the hillside, and, worried by the heavy
L., = L.
hind a great heap Of dirt, into which he had
partly burrowed, waiting for his enemy.
Among the debris Of spring tide-fallen
easily be hidden, if he was mad and wanted
to conceal himself, till the enemy was with
in a few feet It was q terrible close shave.
We! stalked two small grizzlies in the
tsopen'' one evening. They were busy turn
ing over stones in order to get the grubs
and worms underneath, and when we man
aged to get, unseen, within forty yards, at
first fire each received a bullet broadside
behind the shoulder; but, seemingly, none
the worse, they both turned down-hiu as bear
will, when wounded, nine times out Of ten,
and made for the ravine, whence they had
evidently come. This gave me q nice open
shot as they passed, and No. rolled over
dead; not 80 No. 2. Before he got a hundred
yards away hit him three times. Ny rife
was fifty caliber Billiard repeater, the one
have used for years-one hundred grains
Of powder and q solid ball. At the fourth
shot he fell all Of q heap, seemingly dead
To save trouble we laid hold of the first one,
which lay about seventy yards above the
second, and dragged him down the steep
incline to where this second lay, for conve-
nience in skinning. We got within few
feet of the bear when up he jumped, and,
on one hind leg and one fore, went for
Frank. The attack was tremendously IN
expected and sudden. At glance you
could see that the poor, plucky brute was
past hurting any one, for the arm was
smashed and his LAWYER jaw was shot almost
completely away. Yet I tell the simple
truth when say that for few strides he
actually caught up to Frank, who made
| most admirable time; then he suddenly fell
dead. We examined that bear carefully;
he was small one, not weighing more than
two hundred pounds, and was shot all to
! pieces. Each of the five bullets Ihad fired
| had struck him: one hip and one forearm
were broken, the lower jaw shot away;
there was one shot in the neck, and one,
It is never safe to fool with grizzly; he
may run away as fast as an elk, or he may
not. He may drop to the first ell-planted
bullet, or he may stand up till blown almost
to pieces.
There is among Western men much con-
troversy as to the various kinds of bear in
habiting our Western Alps, but the num-
Der of those who, from personal observa-
ton, arc capable of forming an opinion is
very small In the first place, for all the
sanguinary talk around the stove, there are
not a great many men who have made a
practice of hunting bear at all. One such
incident as that which occurred two years
ago in the Big Horn scares a good many. A
! poor fellow there came on a bear, a small
cinnamon, feeding on an elk he had killed.
He fred and wounded it. The bear retreat-
ed and he followed. Coming up with it,
again he fired, when the bear charged him.
Trying to reload [he used, heard, single
shot Sharp rihe), the extractor came off the
empty SHE'LL and, of course, he was defense
less. He evidently drew his knife and used
, it desperately, for when they found him the
bear lay near him, dead, with many knife
wounds in it; but it had killed him first. In
short, both on account of the danger and by
reason Of the great difficulty of seeing them,
| it scarcely pays to hunt bear alone.
There are comparatively few men, I say,
| whose OPINION IS worm mucn. ana some OF
these seem to have an idea that, for the
credit of the mountain-land they love sc
well, they are bound to people it with as
many different species Of bear as they can
Now, as matter OF fact believe that al
most all the, bear ranging in the Rocky
mountains occasionally breed together; GER
tainly, brown and black'sometimes do Oul
party once shot a black bear with large
brown cross, extending from the tail to the
back of the head and down each shoulder
Just as certainly the brown and grizzly or
occasions intermarry. ] may be wrong, but
I can not myself see any difference suffici
entity marked to warrant the idea that the
cinnamon bear of the Rockies is not the
coarser, large brown bear, the result Of
some crossing between the grizzly and the
Then some men insist that among thu
A gray bear there are no less than three dis
tinct varieties silvertip, roachback ane
grizzly. As 7 have said before, lean no
say any thing about the California grizzly
4 though do not think, from skins have ex
amined, he differs materially from hi.
neighbor of the mountains; but as to these
differences OF color indicating distinc
variety, I can not believe it.
49, ~ lcmmOns and Walker Blaine. &